Bourdais was about 1-2 tenths faster than Tagliani I believe, but he spun at the end of the qualifying group he was in and caused a red flag, and they deleted his fastest laptime for that as far as I’m aware.

Isn’t “Dragon-Lotus” the coolest team name ever? Since you have to jump through hoops to watch ALMS nowadays, I’m gonna have to keep up with IndyCar and Rolex Grand-Am, especially since IndyCar is running on more street/road courses than ovals.

The Lotus performance deficit is likely at least partially because they had the shortest development period for their engines. I also think Chevrolet have a bit of an edge since they’re actually made by Ilmor who made the previous Honda Indycar Engines.

Really looks as if Chevrolet stole a march on their engine rivals this year, as @thersquared writes. Ganassi is quite a bit further down than one would expect, although it might be different on ovals.
Pagenaud was the fastest Honda engined car, really impressive from him, and the team.

And off course @damionshadows is completely right about the Dragon-Lotus team name. Shame they will need a lot od dragon power and lotus calm to get a good result from making up the back of the field.

@keithcollantine – The stepped noses are there for a reason. It’s just not a very good reason. And, as McLaren (and to a lesser extent, Marussia) have demonstrated, you can be quick with a low nose and a good-looking car, which makes the reason all the more lazy.

Obviously, the rear “bumper” is to keep the cars from taking flight on hyper fast ovals. They seem to have eliminated needless rear punctures during the race. Not the best looking, but very functional. The new IndyCars are better looking than those hideous stepped noses.